


Truth or Dare

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: David and Frank play a game.





	Truth or Dare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mr-finch (soubriquet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/gifts).



> Technically this fits with 'Come Home' and 'Puncture Repair', as a sort of prologue.

They’re both drunk and that excuses nothing, but it certainly is a fact.

They’re both drunk and lonely and tired and it means a lot to be able to come back somewhere and sit with someone who doesn’t want him dead. It means something to be able to trust someone well enough to let himself relax this way, to drink enough to feel it.

Lieberman has trusted him from the outset. He made that choice. It was harder for Frank, but David seemed to accept that as well. David drank while Frank watched, offered him a glass that Frank might look at or even hold but rarely even sipped from.

Tonight though?

“Truth,” he opts, taking a drink of the whiskey David’s passed him. This is the third or fourth glass, and the fact that he can’t say for sure which it is should probably tell him that it’s the latter. “You think I’m drunk enough to pick a dare from you, you’re drunker ‘n usual.”

“Coward,” David says, but it’s affectionate, harmless. They’re sitting next to each other on the counter they prep food on, and Frank can’t remember why he’s decided sitting there was a good idea, only the little huff of breath David had made when he hopped up after him. “Okay, okay. Uh, when’s the last time you were drunk?”

He snorts and cuts David a scathing look, one he hopes communicates the idea of ‘ _and you call_ me _a coward’_ without his having to say anything. Judging by the way David grins and raises a hand to hide his mouth, he assumes it worked. “Few months before –”

 _before the kid_ , he almost says, _before Donny, that was his name, Donny_ and there in his head he can see the kid’s, _Donny’s_ , face, covered in wet concrete and blood, screaming in the dark, in terror, mortal fucking terror. That’s how he always sees him when he remembers him, and he pushes the image aside, more easily than he wants to admit.

“– before you contacted me.”

David makes a low noise, interested, maybe surprised. “Do you –”

“One, Lieberman,” he says, downing the rest of his glass. “You get one.”

A roll of those bright blue eyes, a shrug of acquiescence. Silence, or a moment, until Frank gestures with his empty glass.

“So, c’mon. Pick your poison, David.”

“Oh! Right, uh.” David seems to think for a minute, and when he chuckles, giving Frank a look from the corner of his eyes, Frank feels a smile of his own curl his lips. “Kinda painted myself into a corner with that coward comment, right?”

“You did, yeah, sure did.”

David just laughs. “So dare, then. Bring it on.”

Frank laughs too. He can’t help it. David sounds so resigned, almost compliant to the idea, and Frank for a moment has no idea in the world what to dare this spook, this geek, this brave, dead man to do.

“Pour me a drink,” he says, holding out his cup, and David makes as if to comply, then looks at him, eyes half-lidded and heavy, smile something just a shade devious.

“Is that your dare?”

“What? No,” Frank pushes the glass closer and points at the other man. “Smart ass,” he accuses as the booze is poured and David laughs, delighted, pleased. “I dare you to spar with me.”

He grins, a weird surge of triumph – and _god_ , yeah, he really _must_ be drunk to feel this smug over something so inane – at the way David goggles at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

“Right now? Like – _right now_?”

“Yeah,” Frank drawls, pushing to stand, setting his drink aside after another sip. “Unless you’d rather wait til I’m sober?”

“I mean, you might forget by tomorrow so maybe?’ David tries, but whatever look it is he sees in Frank’s eyes as Frank gently pulls the bottle out of his hands and sets it aside seems to be enough to shut him up. “You won’t forget, huh?”

“Definitely will not,” Frank promises, and David shakes his head, still smiling, and throws back the rest of what’s in his glass before jumping to his feet, bouncing a bit. It’s kind of adorable, honestly.

They’re both drunk, and that excuses nothing, but it certainly is a fact. Frank knows he has to be careful, take it easy, and he can see the nerves in every line of David’s posture and it makes him feel warm – warm, when David squares up across from him, in spite of obvious unease. He cuts a surprisingly steady figure for a guy who gangles the way he does, and Frank can’t help but appreciate that he at least knows the correct posture to fall into, arms half raised. Ready to block, fists loosely curled.

There is no room to circle or really square off better than just staring across the space, waiting for the other to move. Frank knows David won’t – David thinks too goddamn much. So it’s him that lurches in to close the space, making an obvious play to knock David about the head, laughing when David bats his hand away with surprising deftness. He swings again, testing, probing, and finds David is surprisingly adept at defense, even if he’s a little slow to actually try hitting back.

“There’re, uh, they make us take self defense courses,” David says, a little breathless when Frank steps back, and he guesses he must look surprised to be treated to this half-assed explanation. “I was never much good at anything but blocking.”

Frank chuckles and steps back into David’s space, faster this time, feigning at David’s face and then driving his knuckles into that skinny chest, not hard enough to drive the air out, but enough to bruise maybe. Enough to hurt.

Except it doesn’t land. He means it to, certainly he does, but David flinches back and swallows his fist, which is sore and bruised, scabs heavy and rough on his knuckles, in his own hand, stopping him. David looks just as surprised as Frank, and then he pushes against Frank, shoving him away, and they both laugh. It feels good, and there’s no guilt to it, no reservation; it just feels good, to be two guys, friends, hanging out and goofing off, more than a little drunk, laughing.

“Oh, now you’re in for it,” Frank says, stalking forward again, hands balled at his side, every line of his body a threat, and David’s not ready, David is doubled over laughing, hands raised in supplication. Frank can’t remember the last time he was comfortable with someone like this, felt like wanting to play – and that’s what this is, this artless tussling they get into when he grabs hold of David and tries to wrestle him into a choke-hold; it’s play, and he knows in some sober recess of his mind that they should be focused, they have a goal, they’re not supposed to be partners or friends and they have no reason to be acting like this, but it’s fun. It feels _good_.

It feels good to be those things they’re not supposed to be.

Somehow David gets the upper hand again, and Frank realizes he’s taking it too easy on the lanky bastard. He realizes it too late to avoid getting pinned, face pressed into the cold of the wall while David shoves up against him, hot at his back. David feels like a furnace, pinning Frank’s hands to his back between them.

“Truth or dare, Frank,” David breathes, panting slightly in Frank’s ear. Frank can _hear_ it when David licks his lips, squeezes his eyes closed against an obscene urge to shiver. “Truth or dare.”

“Truth, you prick,” he grinds out, leaning into the wall, trying to negate the heat of being pinned down like this with the chill of the wall; the unyielding hardness of it, the clamminess.

They both know Frank could extract himself from any hold David got him in, drunk or sober. That he could kick David’s ass easily, if he wanted. Kill him.

But just as they both know all that, they both understand that Frank _doesn’t_ _want_ to. Frank’s just fine where he is.

“When’s the last time someone kissed you?”

The question comes heavy with implication, and Frank, drunk or no, knows he should put an end to where this is headed here and now. It’s not fair to David, or his family, or the mission they’re working so hard to pull off. And maybe, if he cares to examine it, it’s not fair to himself, either; not fair to let himself open up for something than can only crash and burn so spectacularly it’ll blind them both at best.

“I don’t remember,” he says, and he’s leaning against the wall, sagging against it, letting David support him. David’s beard scratches at his cheek, David’s hand is tight around his wrists, David’s chest is hot against his back. David is everywhere, part of every bit of consciousness he can focus on.

“Dare me,” he says, quiet and breathy, and Frank does shiver at that, at the promise of it. David pushes a little tighter against him, as if he feels that shiver and has to answer it.

“Coward,” Frank accuses, just as soft. There’s a moment then, a moment – he’ll look back on that moment as a Before. There are so many moments that serve as Before. The last time he kissed Maria. The first time he kissed her. That last night, when Lisa asked him to read her that book, read her to sleep. Before he held his first gun, killed his first man, got his first scar. Before he joined the Marines. Before Cerberus. Before, before, before – there are so many lines he’s crossed.

But it’s just a moment, a moment of stillness, a moment where they’re both contemplating this thing they’re straining to and not to cross.

And then he’s twisting in David’s arms and David’s dragging him around to face him, working together in the rough, violent harmony of the drunk and desperate, until they’re chest to chest, clutching, dragging each other in and together.

They’re both drunk and that excuses nothing, but it certainly is a fact.

It’s almost not even something that could be called a kiss. It’s sloppy, full of teeth; David presses hard to him, a hand at the back of his neck, heavy and hot and _everything_ , so solid and so close, and he’s nothing like what Frank’s been missing; there are no soft curves to David, no delicacy, no familiar tenderness. No, David is angles and firmness and bald, naked want, so new and hungry that he overwhelms Frank’s capacity for guilt, for memory, for comparison. All he can think of is what’s happening, the certain cloying inevitability of it, the eager aching in both of them as they cling like drowning men, like drunk men, tight to one another.

And then, on some unspoken cue, like the shifting in a harmony of some unheard melody, they break apart. They’re still holding each other, still much too close, but the need to kiss, to push, to dig themselves into each other – that’s gone. This is something gentler, kinder; their foreheads rest gently together, David curling over Frank just slightly. There is, Frank finds, such intimacy in their mingled breath.

“We can’t do this,” he says, and smiles a little when David sighs and nods. They both know, they know the lines they’re crossing, the changes they’re making, the personal upheavals they’re withstanding.

“Not like this, not drunk, not… here.” David says, finding words for things Frank can only think. David’s fingers are curled tight and heavy on Frank’s neck, and there’s a promise in that too. A sort of hope, and Frank can’t bring himself to dash that. He knows hope is a real four letter word, but sometimes even he falls prey to it.

They need something to hold on to in the coming days. Some promise of something better to come from all this. They rely on each other, find a certain sort of comfort in their parallels and their need to bicker.

So they draw apart, gentle now, slow. David chuckles, his hand on Frank’s shoulder as if he needs support.

“Truth or dare,” he asks as they move back into the kitchen area. Frank gives him a long look, testing, but David just stares back, smiling mildly – and there’s a dare in and of itself in that smile, one Frank refuses to back away from.

He lifts his chin and thinks for a moment. “Dare,” he finally says, resisting the urge to grin when David claps his hands and laughs.

“Alright! Good man!” He crows, and hops back up to sit on the counter. Frank leans against the edge beside him, fighting to keep his straight face, waiting. David makes him wait a while, taking the time to pour himself another few fingers of their dwindling supply of whiskey. Finally, swallowing his drink, he says, “I dare you to come home with me when this is all finished.”

And Frank, well, he doesn’t know the future and he doesn’t know the twists that lay before them. He doesn’t even know if he plans to be _alive_ when this is all finished. He knows, though, that things will just get more complicated, between them, between himself and the rest of the world. That’s just the nature of this thing. It’s just fact, can’t twist away from it.

But they’re After, now. After the kiss, after the admonition, wordless or otherwise, of their want for each other. And in the After of something that big, there are certain leaps of faith that must be made, certain promises that are just implicit.

So he raises his own glass and David clinks his to it; they both drink and he looks David in the eye, and he says, “Of course.”


End file.
